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An officer of great personal courage. Charles Bullen was Lord Northesk’s flag captain at Trafalgar and the two men had worked well together over seven or eight years. However, Bullen and Nelson had never served together before 1805 and, typically, Nelson made sure he got to know him in the days before Trafalgar by inviting him to dine.
Born on 10 September 1769 in Newcastle, and having entered the service in 1779, young Bullen progressed through sea training and gained his lieutenancy in 1791. He served as lieutenant on board the Ramillies during Lord Howe’s victory of the Glorious First of June, 1794. He then joined the Monmouth (64), whose captain was Lord Northesk. They were both swept into the maw of the Nore Mutiny of 1797. Northesk was treated with respect and even asked by the mutineers to present their grievances to the King; Bullen, on the other hand, was put on trial by the ship’s company, who even went so far as to put a noose around his neck.
Northesk resigned his command in protest when the mutineers’ demands were rejected, but Bullen continued as the Monmouth’s first lieutenant under a new captain, James Walker. He took part in the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797 when the Monmouth fought a brutal battle with the Alkmaar and Delft, both of which surrendered to her. Marshall recounts, ‘[The Delft] was taken possession of by Lieutenant Bullen, who found her in very shoal water, and so dreadfully cut up, that it was with great difficulty he could get her clear of the shore. She sunk under him, when in tow of the Veteran, 64, two days after the action.’ Many Dutch and British seamen were lost, but many more were saved under Bullen’s direction, as they were picked up by the boats of the Veteran. Bullen was lucky to be amongst those rescued. For his bravery and exertions during and after Camperdown, Bullen was promoted commander early in 1798. He took command of hmsWasp in 1801 and served a very arduous time at Sierra Leone, which accounted for his promotion to captain in 1802 upon his return to England.
Bullen then commanded a district of Sea Fencibles and the flotilla equipped in the Thames and Medway, all in anticipation of imminent invasion in 1804. In April 1804, Northesk, then commanding the Britannia, was promoted rear admiral and, having hoisted his flag in his former ship, asked for Bullen as his flag captain. In August 1805, they were detached from the Channel Fleet to join the fleet off Cadiz.
At Trafalgar, the Britannia was in Nelson’s line, sailing in the wake of hmsConqueror. It appears that she passed through the gap in the line made by the Victory, but as the Britannia was such a slow sailer, she did not arrive until a long time after the Victory. Lieutenant Royal Marines Lawrence Halloran, who was on board the Britannia, described the moment his ship raked the Santissima Trinidad in his journal: ‘[Our guns] shattered the rich display of sculpture, figures, ornaments and inscriptions with which she was adorned. I never saw so beautiful a ship.’
Following Trafalgar, Bullen received the naval gold medal and a sword from the Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund. He rose in rank and responsibility, commanding the frigates Volontaire and Cambrian in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Spain during 1807–11, and the Akbar on the North American station during 1814–17. He was commissioner of Chatham Dockyard and superintendent of Pembroke Dockyard during the 1830s and later captain of the Royal Yacht Royal Sovereign. Having been made a CB in 1815, he rose to KCB in 1839 and GCB in 1852. He reached the rank of admiral in 1852 and was the last of the Trafalgar Captains to die – at Shirley in Hampshire on 2 July 1853.
SCC
Memorials
Type: Headstone Material: Stone Location: St Mary’s Church, South Stoneham, nr Southampton Click here to read more…
Type: Wall Plaque Material: Marble, white Location: St James’s Church, Shirley, Southampton (in the Cawte Chapel, at head of south aisle) Click here to read more…